Russell Dodd

Education

Education

Sep 2014 - May 2018

Bachelor of Science

Brown University

Brown is an Ivy League University located in Rhode Island, USA.

2009 - 2013

Napier Boys' High School

Background

Up until March 2013, I had spent my whole upbringing living on a farm in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. This has helped me develop many skills that have proved useful latter in life. I also had the good fortune of attending a rural school all the way up until high school. This has meant that I have always been involved in sport and a wide range of activities.

I attended Kereru School for primary and intermediate, and Napier Boys' High School from 2009 to 2013.

I have spent a full semester studying engineering at the University of Canterbury. I did this as preparation for my studies at Brown. I am currently in my Sophomore year at Brown.

Work experience

Work experience

Jun 2015 - Aug 2015

Head Tester and Assistant Programmer

IdentiTech

I was the head tester and assistant programmer for IdentiTech's current identity management web application. This involved developing Javascript scripts to automate testing, and using internet browser developer windows to identify bugs and security flaws. I was also assigned a range of JS coding jobs during the development and maintenance of the application. This included parsing the data given when a QR-Code is scanned and redirecting the user to a profile overview, optimisation of data table searching, downloading a CSV file based on the current filtered data, and various bug fixes.

Jun 2014 - Aug 2014

Calf rearing

Prior to studying at Brown I reared 200 calves on a sheep and beef farm in Hawkes Bay, NZ.

Sporting and Community Involvement

At Brown I am a varsity athlete on their heavyweight mens crew program where we compete against the nations best college rowing programs. Last Spring Brown came 4th at the IRA National Championships and I raced in the 2nd varsity eight which placed sixth in the A final.

In high school I was involved in a range of sports, with the main one being rowing. I achieved 6 national titles throughout my rowing career and received a trial for the New Zealand Junior team.

I participated in a clean up the Marine Parade project.

As a prefect I was involved in community projects such as Voice Of Change, which pushed for students to be more responsible with their drinking of alcohol.

Academic Information

At high school level I achieved NCEA level 3 endorsed with Excellence.

Papers that I completed at the University Of Canterbury:

Introduction to Computer Programming with Python

Foundations of Engineering

Engineering related Mathematics

Engineering Physics A: Mechanics, Waves and Thermal Physics

Classes that I have taken/am taking at Brown University:

Computer Science 33: Introduction to Computer Systems

Engineering 51: Electricity and Magnetism

Applied Math 33: Methods of Applied Mathematics

Engineering 30: Introduction to Engineering

Engineering 40: Dynamics and Vibrations

Management of Industrial/Nonprofit Organisations

Computer Science 17: an integrated Introduction to Computer Science

Computer Science 18: an integrated Introduction to Computer Science

History of Art: 20th Century British Art

Advanced Placement Calculus

Multivariable Calculus

Appropriate Technology

Experience in Computer Science

At the University of Canterbury I gained a firm grounding in Python, which including Object Oriented Programming (OOP) in Python, working with Files, and Input/Output.

At Brown I have already been deeply immersed in many aspects of Computer Science. I am currently learning about computer systems in which we are being taught C and Assembly. In my first year I learnt 4 different languages; Java, Scala, OCaml, and Racket. For each language we completed multiple pair programming projects, labs and homework's.

Experience in Java includes:

An OOP project in which we designed and implemented a text-based card game with an emphasis on extensibility of code.

A client server interaction project which included constructing an address book from an xml source file which can be updated, pushed to the server, and pulled from the server. Various information could be requested from the server such as mutual friends and shortest path between friends in the address book which used graphing. We had to design an xml parser to construct the address book, and the address book was also saved to the xml file when it was updated.

Experience in Scala includes:

A friend finding project in which we created a KD-Tree, implemented nearest-neighbour search, and made a GUI interface for the KD-tree. Attributes could be entered into the GUI and submitted so that the KD-Tree node with the nearest match to these attributes would be returned.

A search engine project in which we would take in a corpus of Wikipedia pages, index them, then allow a user to query them.

Writing a program that takes as input a sentence and responds in a seemingly intelligent manner by recognising patterns in the input.

Experience with OCaml includes:

Writing an interpreter for a subset of the Racket language.

Writing a text-based Connect-4 game, and an AI player that solves the game using the minimax algorithm.

Skills

Skills

Teamwork

All of our Computer Science projects and labs in CS 17 and 18 were done in pairs, with a policy of having a different partner each time.

As a rower and a contributor in many team projects I understand the importance of working effectively as a team to achieve a goal.

Leadership

As a Prefect in high school it was important that I was a good role model for the younger students. I was also in charge of a year 9 class, which involved helping them out with academic and social issues they faced.

I was in the stroke seat (front seat) in our high school rowing eight that won the Senior Eight at the Club National Championships and that came second in the Under Eighteen Eight at the Maadi Cup. Being in the stroke seat means that you set the rhythm and stroke rate of the boat. It requires you to be motivated and enthusiastic at every training so that you can get the best out of your crew.

Communication

As a Prefect at Napier Boys' High School I had to give readings in front of all the students and staff.

Rowing in an Eight requires effective communication in order to coordinate everybody.